That looks like a natural amp box to me, I think that's why it might be noisy. Not sure on the best route to stop that as most noise reduction solutions are going to affect heat also.

Yeah, most of it are movies, which I've lost a couple of times before.  Not a big deal to redownload them, but if I don't have to I'd rather not.  Last time I did it I had 20 hard drives (small ones) full and all my cloud storage full just to pull it off.  I now have an Azure storage area with 300GB that would help with it, but it still takes a long time to upload all that stuff!

Maybe you could put some kind of dampening material in there to keep the noise down?

Indeed, it amplifies the noise of the fans/air rumbling something silly.

The plan was to have good airflow around the parts so everything stays cool, which I think it does well as the CPU has no fan and underclocked  bit it stays at 50C. I wonder how much heat is being transmitted through the chipboard.

Haha, 20 HDDs to backup stuff! That must have been a pain. You have too much stuff, as Xen would say :)

Egg trays/foam pyramids like they use in those crazy looking anti echo chambers?

Yeah, that's the stuff I was thinking about, or maybe some of the Styrofoam stuff from a cooler and wrap it on the outside?

Could try something on the outside, not sure how much of the noise is coming from the fan holes. I did just think about a double skinned case with a vacuum between to deaden thenoise but not sure how easy that would be to achieve.

found a PC style I want someone to build for me ! ~

I used to have a server in the bottom drawer of my desk.

My current main HTPC is a HP Elite 8200 SFF. Looks quite nice on my TV stand. It's smaller than my amp so it doesn't stand out.

ugh!

I think re-purposing an old DVD player or something would be pretty easy to do and that would blend in nice.  I don't mind what I have though.  The server is in the bedroom and it streams to Apple TV's and Pi's.  The Pi has a Lego case for now, but I did order a nice one from Amazon the other day.

:) I assume that is water cooled with the radiator and pipes running into it.

I have a lovely big space behind the TV, a recess the other side of the chimney breast, so have plenty of room to hide stuff behind there. I have cables hanging down from the ceiling (ethernet and speaker) that aren't even clipped to the wall that don't get noticed. That big case that would look stupid anywhere else almost disappears behind there and is a convenient space to rest the router and door bell.

A re-purposed DVD player would be nice. Especially if you could fit some sort of LCD display.

The ebay seller I got the HP system off sent me the wrong one (8200 (Core i5 2400) rather than 8000 (Core 2 Duo)) so it's a much better spec than what I was planning on. But the size is ideal. Popped a cheap nvidia graphics card in there and my satellite tuner and it was good to go.

pretty sure it is, yes - I think it's great :D

It looks like something Captain Nemo would have had on the Nautilus! :)

What about actually building an enclosure/channel tunnel around the hot bits so the air moves through it but the sound is then broken up?

Imagine the red lines below as MDF/Chipboard for instance. These would be the same depth as the overall enclosure and you could but egg box in the rest to help deaden the sound.

That sounds like a good idea actually. It'll help with cooling too. I can also make the bits that cover the motherboard shallower and maybe put insulating stuff over the rest. Hmm, a plan for next year sometime. Thanks for that idea.

that is pretty much why I like it :)

That's proper steam punk!